


Five Times Sam and Gabriel Ran Away and One Time They Didn't

by Ashtiel



Category: Supernatural
Genre: A little angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff, M/M, everyone is human but the Winchesters still hunt, five times fic, human!AU, runaways - Freeform, they start out as kids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-10
Updated: 2014-08-10
Packaged: 2018-02-12 15:48:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2115693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ashtiel/pseuds/Ashtiel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The five times that Sam and Gabriel ran away and the one time they didn't (plus epilogue).</p>
<p>“Gabriel!” Micheal yelled. He was almost underneath them. Sam could see his black hair through the leaves beneath their feet. Micheal crept closer and closer, until he was directly bellow their branch. Then he looked up. “John. I found them.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Times Sam and Gabriel Ran Away and One Time They Didn't

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by the lovely [Orna](http://castielvis.co.vu/) and amazing [Kat](http://princessofthehellmouth.tumblr.com/). All remaining mistakes are purely my own.

**_ ONE AND TWO: _ **

 Sam refused to look at John and Dean; his eyes were glued to rear window, watching yet another town disappear in a cloud of dust. His fingernails bit perfect crescents into his palms. The pain helped ground him and kept the tears at bay.

“We’ll get ice cream next time we stop, Sammy,” John said as he turned onto the interstate. “You like ice cream, right?”

Sam didn’t answer. Ice cream wasn’t going to fix anything. They’d stayed in Vincense, Indiana for almost three months on a case. Sam had been able to stay in the same school long enough to almost finish third grade. He’d even managed to make a few friends. But now they were leaving, and he’d never see them again.

“We can get vanilla,” Dean said. “It’s your favorite.”

“No it’s not,” a quiet voice from under a blanket on the floorboard by Sam’s feet. “Strawberry is.”

Sam jumped and hit his head on the window.

“Careful,” was all John said. Neither John nor Dean seemed to have heard the voice.

Sam held his breath and stuck out his foot. He gently prodded the blanket.

It grunted.

A familiar blonde tuft of hair popped out of the end of the blanket and mischievous golden-brown eyes followed. “Stop it!” Gabriel whispered.

“Gabe!” Sam hissed. He ducked his head so John and Dean wouldn’t see him. “What are you doing here?”

“Coming with you,” Gabriel said. “Now shhhhhh! I don’t want them to find me.”

“You can’t come!”

Gabriel stuck his tongue out at Sam and ducked his head back under the blanket.

Sam couldn’t stop staring at the occasionally-moving blanket. They made it fifteen minutes down the road before Gabriel stuck his head out again. “I have to pee,” he said.

“We can’t stop. They’ll see you,” Sam whispered. “You have to pee in a bottle.”

“Okay.” Gabriel looked thrilled at the challenge.

Sam raised his voice, “Dean? Do you have a bottle?”

Dean looked in the rear-view mirror with a raised eyebrow. He was really starting to pick things up from the sassy waitresses in diners. “Why do you need a bottle?”

“I have to use the bathroom.”

“You’re not peeing in my car,” John said, then he sighed. “I thought I told you to pee before we left.”

“I did!” Sam said. He chewed the inside of his lip. “But I have to go again.”

“Bladder the size of a peanut,” John murmured under his breath. “We’ll pull over at the next gas station.”

Sam ducked his head again. Gabriel was staring up at him. “You can’t get out! They’ll see you!” Sam said

“I really have to pee!”

“You have to hold it.”

“I can’t!” Gabriel squirmed underneath the blanket. He hardly ever stayed still, but he acted as if he were about to burst.

Three miles later, they came to a smallish gas station with a broken sign out front. John pulled into a parking space. Sam froze.

“I thought you had to go to the bathroom,” he said. His eyes in the rear-view mirror seemed to bore holes in Sam’s forehead.

“I-I do,” Sam said. He slid across the seat and opened the door. His short legs weren’t long enough to reach the ground, so he had to hop out of the car. It was all he could do to not look over his shoulder into the backseat.

Sam went inside, peed even though he really didn’t have to, and went back out to the car. John was waiting for him with Gabriel’s collar bunched up in his fist. Gabriel waved at him.

“What is this?” John asked, shaking Gabriel slightly.

“Gabe,” Sam said.

John’s free hand curled into a fist and then unclenched. “What is he doing here?”

“I’m coming with you,” Gabriel said.

“The hell you are,” John said. He opened the door to the backseat and practically tossed Gabriel inside. “Get in, Sam. We’re taking him back, then we’re going to have a talk.”

Sam climbed into the backseat beside Gabriel. He looked down at his dirty tennis shoes. Gabriel just scooted closer to him, so that their arms brushed. Neither said anything.

Gabriel quietly gave directions to his house, and soon they were pulling into his driveway. Older brother, Michael, was standing on the porch with a phone in his hand. He was pacing back and forth and his free hand was clenched at his side.

“Come on,” John said. “Time to go home.”

Sam got out of the car with Gabriel and together they walked up to the house with John breathing down the back of their necks. When Michael saw Gabriel he snapped his phone shut, walked up to Gabriel in a few short strides, and grabbed his shoulders. “Hi Michael,” Gabriel said as he squirmed in his iron grasp.

“Where were you?” Michael asked.

“He snuck into my car,” John said. He clapped a hand down on Sam’s shoulders, and Sam’s legs almost went out from underneath him. “Brought him back as soon as I noticed.”

“Thank you,” Michael said. He fixed his eyes on Gabriel. “We’ll talk about this inside.”

“But-” Gabriel said, but before he finished, he grabbed Sam’s hand and started to run. With surprise on their sides, they easily broke out their prisons. Gabriel booked it toward his backyard with Sam in tow.

The backyard was a labyrinth of discarded toys, weeds, and trees. Gabriel expertly maneuvered around all the obstacles until they came to a huge, ancient tree with boards haphazardly nailed to the side. “Climb!” Gabriel urged.

Sam did. The rough bark shredded the skin on Sam’s knuckles, but he ignored it. As soon as he was halfway up, Gabriel started to climb after him.

At the top of the makeshift ladder, the tree’s trunk split into huge, gnarled limbs. Sam carefully climbed out onto one of the sturdiest ones and Gabriel scrambled after him. The crawled close to one another and tried to hold in their ragged breath. Someone crashed around in the weeds bellow. Sam clung to the branch for his life and Gabriel tucked his feet under his body so they’d be less noticeable.

“Gabriel!” Micheal yelled. He was almost underneath them. Sam could see his black hair through the leaves beneath their feet. Micheal crept closer and closer, until he was directly bellow their branch. Then he looked up. “John. I found them.”

John plowed through the weeds and kicked a toy truck aside. “Sam. Get down here. We don’t have time for this.”

“No!” Gabriel shouted. Michael glared at him and he scooted closer to Sam and crossed his arms across his chest.

“Samuel Winchester,” John said slowly, the authority in his voice almost palpable, “get down here. Now. If I have to climb up there, you’re not going to be able to walk straight for a week.”

“I have to go,” Sam whispered.

“No!” Gabriel said.

“Ten, nine, eight,” John started. He never got down to zero. Sam clambered out of the tree and left Gabriel to hold on to the branch alone. They abandoned town that afternoon and no one looked back but Sam.

* * *

 

**_ THREE: _ **

 “You’re tearing this family apart!” Michael said. His voice was steady and low, but his back as straight as a steel rod and he drew his breath in quick, shallow gasps through his teeth.

Gabriel laughed. “I’m tearing this family apart?” His voice was neither steady nor low. His face was as red as freshly-spilled blood and his hands were clenched so tightly that it felt as if they might fall off. “And what are you and Lucy doing, huh?”

“Lucifer left to keep us together.”

“That was supposed to keep us together? How is leaving supposed to keep our family together?”

“He left to end the fighting.”

“Then why is there still fighting?” Gabriel laughed and twisted his face into a grin as sharp as barbed wire. “Shouldn’t we all be holding hands and singing Kumbaya?”

“Because you insist on disrupting the peace!”

“I asked how Lucy was! How is that ‘disrupting the peace’?” Gabriel curled his fingers around the last three words, but his hands shook.

“You know it upsets us all when you bring him up.”

“Upsets you? You poor things! He’s our brother. And it upsets you if I bring him up? How the fuck do you think he feels?”

“Gabriel. Language.”

“Fuck you, Michael!”

“Go take a walk. Come back when you’re ready to be rational.”

“Who the fuck do you think you are? Dad? Well I have news for you, Michael! No matter how much you want to be, you’re not him! So you can just fuck off.”

Gabriel spun away and started to storm up the stairs to his room, but Michael caught his wrist and squeezed like he was determined to break all the bones in his arm. “I said told you to take a walk.” Michael leaned in until their faces were only inches apart. “So you’re going to take a walk.”

Michael was taller and stronger than Gabriel. He dragged him into the porch and pushed him into the grass, then went back inside. Even from where he lay, sprawled on the yard, he could hear the deadbolt slide into place.

Gabriel was too angry even to form a coherent thought. The curtain of one of the upstairs windows moved and Gabriel saw his little brother, Balthazar, peeking out. He forced the anger down into the pit of his stomach and waved to Balthazar. _Everything is okay._ Balthazar waved back.

Gabriel wandered the streets of the small town for hours. Streetlights replaced the sun, and still Gabriel didn’t want to go home. Michael and Anna could take care of all the littler kids. They didn’t need him. No one needed him. He thought about walking until he couldn’t walk anymore, just to see where he’d end up, but he didn’t want to leave Balthazar, Anna, and Castiel, three of his more rebellious siblings, alone with Michael. Without him or Lucifer to pick on, Michael would turn on them. He couldn’t tolerate anyone being different, and it made life a living hell for all of them.

Still, it wasn’t safe for Gabriel to go home. He eventually found himself standing on the doorstep of one of his only friends, Kali. She answered the door on the second knock and offered Gabriel the couch. He gladly took it.

* * *

 

**_ FOUR: _ **

 Even after all the yelling, throwing things, and threats, once he started it, walking away was one of the easiest things Sam had ever done. John went out to the Impala and gave Sam ten minutes to pack up all his things and get out of the motel room before he threw him out without anything at all. Dean stayed and helped him pack.

It didn’t take long, a few shirts here, a pair of shoes there. He didn’t take any weapons. He wouldn’t need them anymore. When they were done, Dean pressed a cell phone into Sam’s hand and made him promise to call or text anytime he had the chance. They hugged, then Sam walked out the door of his father’s motel room for the last time.

He caught a ride a mile down the road. The truck driver was going to Indiana; Sam didn’t care where he was going. They drove through the night, but when the first fingers of dawn stroked the sky, they stopped at a truck stop on the edge of a small town. Sam thanked the man for the ride and went in search of a motel room.

Sam only stayed in the town for thirteen hours. He got his fill of sleep and ate a limp salad, then caught another ride with a chatty man. He took Sam another three hours into the heart of Indiana and dropped him off outside of a chain motel in a large town. Sam had just enough money to buy the room for the night. Across from the motel was a bar with a little, red **HELP WANTED** sign in the window.

By the end of the day, Sam had a job. The bar wasn’t the cleanest, and the regular patrons were rough, but Sam felt happier than he had in years. He had a real job and his own place to stay for one of the first times in his life. It wasn’t glamorous, but it was something. He was out from under his father’s thumb.

When he called his brother that night, Dean was thrilled for him. He forced Sam to promise to give him a discount when he swung through town. They both hung up with smiles on their faces.

* * *

 

**_ FIVE: _ **

 He left on a Tuesday. Castiel and Anna cried, but he promised to come back for them just as soon as he made some money. Gabriel threw his backpack into the backseat of his beat-up junker and hit the road.

The further he drove, the lighter he felt. By the time he reached Evansville, a large town in the middle of Indiana, he felt like he might float away.

Once he reached the city limits, he looked down at the directions he’d printed out at the library. He made a right, two lefts, and another right. Each turn took him deeper into the town. Finally, he saw his destination. Candy Bucket stood out from it’s neighboring stores with it’s eye-popping paint job and tacky pieces of sculpted candy stuck to the front of the building.

Gabriel immediately recognized the two men behind the counter. He’d been talking to them online for months, trying to set a job up for himself before he moved. “Can I help you?” the one with facial hair, Ed, asked.

“I’m Gabriel,” he said.

“Oh! Right!” the shorter man, Harry, said. He held out his hand. “Welcome!”

Gabriel shook it. “Thanks.”

“You ready to get started, or do you want to wait until tomorrow?” Ed asked.

Gabriel glanced outside. He still had to find a motel, but there had to be at least a dozen in the town, and the sooner he started working, the sooner he could make money. The sooner he made money, the sooner he could get Castiel, Anna, and Balthazar out of the hell hole they called home. “I’m ready,” he said.

“Great! Follow me, we’ll get you an apron,” Harry said.

Gabriel followed him into the back. 

* * *

 

_**PLUS ONE:** _

 Gabriel was exhausted. It’d been a long day, and all he wanted to do was sink into his bed and sleep for a year. He climbed into his junker and started the short drive back to the apartment he’d been living in for close to a year. It was a big step up from the motel he’s stayed in for his first few weeks in town, but it still didn’t feel like home.

Halfway there, he had a strong urge to turn down a road he’d never driven down before. He slowed almost to a stop, looked down the road, and shrugged. He turned on a whim.

There wasn’t much to see. A few older, saggy stores here and there. A crumbling motel. At the end of the road, there was a bar. It wasn’t normally the kind of place that Gabriel went, but the feeling in his gut returned. It was almost like something was trying to pull him inside. Gabriel didn’t believe in fate, but he did believe in following his gut. So, he parked his car beside a row of rough-looking bikes and went inside.

The bar wasn’t particularly crowded. There were a few women sitting together in the back, each with a bottle of beer in their hands. Two men with leather jackets played pool on a table that had seen better days. There was only one girl at the counter, and she looked almost too young to drink, but she was nursing a beer and looking down at the floor like it held the secrets of the universe. Gabriel sat at the other end of the bar and ordered a beer for himself.

Gabriel looked around the bar, trying to see why he’d felt the urge to go inside. It was nothing special. Just a rough, dirty bar with sad regulars. Someone plopped a beer down behind him with a solid thunk. He turned to thank them, but the words got caught in his throat when he saw the man behind the counter. He was gorgeous. Strong jaw, long brown hair, and god, he was tall. And oddly familiar. “Do I know you?” he asked before his brain could catch up with his mouth.

The man brushed a lock of hair away from his eyes. “I don’t think so,” he said.

“What’s your name?”

“Sam.”

Gabriel was thrown back into memories of hiding under a blanket and clinging to a tree branch while he watched his best friend get dragged out of his yard. There was no way it was the same Sam. His eyes were the same hazel-brown, though, and his nose the same shape. “Sam what?”

Sam raised an eyebrow at him. “Why?”

“Just curious.”

“Winchester. Sam Winchester.”

“Ah, well,” Gabriel’s tongue felt thick and swollen, ”you probably don’t remember me, but they call me Gabriel.”

“Gabriel?” Sam asked, his voice suddenly quiet. “Gabriel Novak?”

Gabriel nodded dumbly. He remembered.

Sam laughed, his eyes sparkling in the dim light of the bar. “Of course I remember you! You hid under a blanket in our car when we tried to leave town! And you got caught because you had to pee!”

“I didn’t think it through, okay?” Gabriel laughed. It’d been so long since he’d really laughed.

“You haven’t grown much,” Sam said.

“Hey! You used to be shorter than me. Did you fall into a vat of radioactive waste or something?” Gabriel asked.

Sam laughed.

They went on for hours, Gabriel’s exhaustion all but forgotten. It was like they’d only been separated for a few minutes instead of years. Sam told Gabriel about his travels all across the United States and Gabriel told Sam about how his bosses had run off to hunt ghosts and left him a candy store. When it was time to close up, neither wanted to leave.

“You like working here?” Gabriel said as Sam wiped down the counters.

Sam shrugged. “It could be worse.”

“You should come work for me. I’ve been meaning to hire someone to help out for months. It’s a hell of a lot more fun than this,” Gabriel said.

Sam stopped wiping the counter. “Really?”

“Yeah, sure. You’re not going to make six figures, but it’s better than hanging out in this dump.”

“Actually?” Sam said. “That would be great.”

Gabriel’s heart flipped over and did a back handspring. “Do you have a napkin?”

Sam raised an eyebrow, but passed him a napkin. Gabriel pulled a pen out of his pocket and scribbled his phone number and the address of his candy store on the front, then handed it back to Sam. “There you go.”

“Thanks,” Sam said as he tucked the napkin into his pocket. “I need a week or so to wrap things up here, is that okay?”

“Fine with me,” Gabriel said. He hopped of the barstool. “See you soon.”

Sam smiled.

* * *

 

_**EPILOGUE:** _

 “Gabriel, stop eating all the inventory,” Sam said as he reached to put a box of licorice on a shelf.

Gabriel laughed through his mouthful of jelly beans and swatted Sam on the butt before darting away. He picked up a marshmallow and locked eyes with Sam before popping it in his mouth.

“Gabriel.” Sam put his hands on his hips.

Gabriel swallowed and grinned. “Oh, come off it Sammich. I own this candy store, so I can eat all the candy I want.”

“Well you aren’t going to own it for long if you eat all the inventory.”

“What are you going to do about it?” Gabriel asked, picking up another marshmallow and holding it above his mouth.

Sam crossed the store in a few large steps and grabbed Gabriel’s wrist. He plucked the marshmallow from his fingers.

“You can’t put it back. I already touched it.”

Sam put the marshmallow into his mouth.

“Hey! That’s not fair,” Gabriel said.

Sam shut him up with a kiss. Gabriel licked the sugar from Sam’s mouth.

Someone in the doorway retched loudly. “Oops. Bad timing, come on Cassie, don’t want you getting scarred,” Balthazar said.

Sam tried to pull away, but Gabriel wrapped his arms around his waist and kept him close. “Ignore them,” he murmured.

“Gabriel-”

“Sammich.”

The door closed and Gabriel recaptured Sam’s lips.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! As always, if you have any constructive criticism or spot any errors, feel free to leave a comment. Have a lovely day.


End file.
